PHILIPSBURG:--- The Domicanos who had a verbal agreement with GEBE former Chief Operations Officer (COO) Romelio Maduro to demolish six old engines at GEBE power plant in Cay Bay plans to take legal actions against Maduro and an employee of GEBE that is accused of stealing two truck-loads of copper from the power plant. SMN News learnt that the contractor will be filing both a civil case against Maduro and a criminal complaint with the police. It is not yet known if these cases were already filed.
SMN News reported earlier that the contractor had a verbal agreement with Maduro where he agreed to demolish the engines and he will be able to keep the copper which he would sell to pay his workers. However, the contractor and his workers were left empty handed when an employee of GEBE went to the power plant and took away two truck-loads of copper from the location. According to information provided to SMN News the stolen copper value about $80,000.00. Apart from the copper the contractor agreed with GEBE management team to also keep the old engines which they were to remove in order to create space for the LPG gas.
SMN News further learnt that the management team of GEBE did not put this particular project on bid before awarding it to the Dominicanos verbally.
The entire clean-up project would have landed the contractor with about $1.5M.
SMN News learnt that the contractor contacted the supervisory board of GEBE demanded that they be paid for the work they did since the copper was stolen by someone working for GEBE. This prompted the supervisory board to ask GEBE security to provide them with a full report on what transpired at the power plant. According to information SMN News received the report that was submitted to the supervisory board states that an employee of GEBE went to the plant and removed two truck-loads of copper without checking in with the security on the location.
While the contractor contacted GEBE Supervisory Board for payment it is clear that the Supervisory Board of GEBE cannot take such decisions since they cannot interfere with the day to day management of the company and the Chief Financial Officer Rene Gartner is currently on honeymoon vacation therefore no immediate decisions could be taken on whether or not GEBE would pay the men that worked for over three months and were not paid.
GEBE Supervisory Board Investigating the Outsourcing of Jobs through Placement Agency --- Human Resource Manager getting a dig in while workers are being robbed.
SMN News further learnt that the Supervisory Board of GEBE is also investigating the Human Resource Manager who chose to use a job placement agency to outsource jobs for the company. A source close to the board said that the Supervisory Board already questioned the former COO on the outsourcing because GEBE is paying the job placement agency huge sums of monies for each worker who barely gets minimum wage to take home. The source said just recently an employee that holds a permanent position at GEBE contested what the job placement agency and GEBE Human Resource manager were doing because the person had three contracts and she was about to get a fourth when the Supervisory Board stepped in.
